


His Girl

by writer314



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Darcy Lewis is Tony Stark's Daughter, F/M, Gen, Minor character death off camera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 20:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7772218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writer314/pseuds/writer314
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written in response to prompt posted at th3pinkbandit.tumblr.com.  Tony suddenly realizes that Darcy may be his daughter.  He takes steps to find out for sure - skipping the 'ask Darcy' step.  Then, he has to figure out what to do about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Girl

Tony didn’t look up as someone - probably Foster’s girl Friday, she was always feeding all of them, or trying to - stuck a plate into the hand he’d put out to receive a wrench from U. Instead, he put the plate down on the bench, took the wrench he’d been expecting, put that on the bench, wiped his hands, and finally looked at the plate, long after the donor was gone. Mozzarella, tomato, spinach, and portobello mushroom on good marble rye - he barely restrained a happy eye roll. The restraint broke when he spied two anise cookies next to it. He thought he might hire her away from Foster if they were homemade (and good). He scarfed down the sandwich, which he ordinarily would have savored - she’d even included a touch of garlic aioli. Somehow, she’d know if he ate the cookies first, and then, no more cookies. 

  


Tony’s first bite of the cookies told him they were, indeed, homemade, and as close to his mother’s as he’d had in a quarter century. He made a mental note to talk to Pepper - surely SI could offer the girl double or even triple whatever Foster was paying her - and she’d be worth it for the cookies alone. Then, without more thought, he went back to work, because ENGINEERING! 

  


Later, over dinner, he broached the subject with Pepper, who laughed. 

  


“Tony, I expanded Darcy’s duties her second day here. She’s officially the Lab Manager for Special Projects, with commensurate salary and benefits, including an apartment here at the tower. She also helps out with the Avengers’ scheduling and social media presence, mostly making sure Steve and Thor’s good works don’t get overlooked.” 

  


Tony smiled at Pepper’s ever-present pre-emptive efficiency. Then a frown passed briefly across his features. “Darcy? Is that her name?” 

  


Pepper rolled her eyes. “Yes, Tony. Her name is Darcy, Darcy Lewis.” 

  


“Huh. Anise cookies like that, you’d think she’d be at least part Italian.” Tony put the thought to the side - after all, he didn’t really care about her heritage, as long as he got more anise cookies. 

  


Several weeks later, he walked into the common room as she - Darcy, he reminded himself - explained the esoteric underpinings of some bit of modern technology to Steve and Bucky. He stopped short when he realized how well she understood the engineering involved. And then it happened. 

  


“Doll, you are even better at explaining this stuff than Howard was! D’you remember, Steve, how he’d go off on some tangent halfway through sometimes?” 

  


Steve laughed. “Tony does the same thing. Talking someone through it, he comes up with some way to make it better, and whoosh, off he goes!” 

  


Darcy shrugged. “I guess it helps I’m not an engineer, or even a scientist. I just speak their language.” 

  


Tony backed out of the room, mind racing. His mom used to say that - she wasn’t an engineer, but she spoke engineer and that’s how she got on with his dad. 

  


The next day, Tony made sure he wasn’t engrossed in his work when she came in with his lunch. He looked at her face - for the first time really - and saw his father’s eyes. 

  


Darcy was surprised Tony wasn’t up to his elbows in grease and machine parts, but didn’t think much about it. Thinking, at least the way Jane, Bruce, and Tony did it, was hard work, too, so lunch was still vital. So, she smiled at Tony, handed him his lunch, and said, “Fresh linguine with Tuscan veggies today!” 

  


Tony couldn’t respond. His father’s eyes. His mother’s smile. Darcy was his daughter. He had a daughter. HE had a daughter. He had a DAUGHTER. A daughter the rumor mill suggested was dating Captain America. He frowned. 

  


Darcy, unaware of Tony’s tumultuous train of thought, wrinkled her brow a bit. “Ok, you have to use a fork, but it can’t be that big a deal!” 

  


Tony finally recovered himself somewhat. He managed to say, “No, no, sounds great. It’s just…” He scrambled to come up with something plausible. “It’s just I was hoping for another anise cookie or two.” 

  


Darcy smiled again, and it lit up the lab. “They’re my favorite, so maybe tomorrow. Biscotti with your afternoon caffeine fix today.” And then she left, still oblivious to the turmoil in Tony’s brain. 

  


As soon as Darcy was out the door, Tony got to work. “FRIDAY, I need deep background on Darcy Lewis.” 

  


“Yes, boss. How deep?” 

  


“Gimme all the paper records you can find. Hopefully, we won’t need to go to soft sources. Also, do we have a medical profile on file?” 

  


“Yes, boss.” 

  


“Great. Get her DNA sequenced and run a paternity test on it.” 

  


“Against whom?” 

  


Tony held back his sigh, reminding himself that even JARVIS hadn’t been JARVIS right away. “Against me.” 

  


“You got it, boss.” 

  


“And, FRIDAY?” 

  


“Yes?” 

  


“The background search and test results are my eyes only.” 

  


“Yes, boss.” 

  


He had a daughter. And he’d have proof by tomorrow at the latest. He was a little surprised her mother hadn’t come to him for money or help - heavens knew plenty of other women had with less cause. He shrugged; he’d know soon enough. 

  


Less than eight hours later, as he and Pepper cleared away the remains of their dinner, FRIDAY announced that the information he had requested earlier was available. 

  


Without pausing, Tony asked, “so do I need to buy pink cigars?” 

  


FRIDAY, mindful of Tony’s earlier injunction, and not yet able to discern (as JARVIS would have) that ‘Tony’s eyes only’ included Pepper, remained silent. 

  


Tony sighed. “FRIDAY, Pepper is aware of the situation. Give me the results.” 

  


“Yes, boss. Darcy Lewis is your daughter. She was born to an unidentified mother who went into slightly premature labor - gestation was estimated at 8 ½ months - following an accident in which a drunk driver ran a red light, hitting the woman’s car. The woman later died of the injuries she sustained in the crash.” FRIDAY displayed a morgue photo of a woman with sandy blond hair and fair skin, who had probably had been quite pretty in life.  
FRIDAY continued, “Police and EMTs were on scene within minutes of the event, to which there were several dozen witnesses. No purse or ID was found in the car, and its license plate traced back to a man who’d died of old age a decade earlier. The police speculated that man may have been the woman’s grandfather, but, as no other family remained to be questioned, that could not be confirmed. While the DNA test proves your paternity definitively, the mother’s DNA is not registered in any publicly available database, nor in any US government database. The child was made a ward of the state of Massachusetts. She was adopted at ten months of age by William and Elizabeth Lewis, of Wellesley, both subsequently deceased of natural causes, who named her Darcy. She attended the Dana Hall School through high school, and then Culver University, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in political science. She took an internship with Jane Foster to acquire science credits when Culver changed its policy regarding AP credit. Students were allowed to use AP credits from only one course within a broad field. She, therefore, lost her credits from two of the three AP sciences she had taken, as well as two of her social sciences and one of her English courses. As the latter were supplied within her major’s requirements, their loss was not burdensome.”  
Tony stood as still as a statue, shell-shocked by the expected confirmation. 

  


Pepper responded to FRIDAY’s expectant silence, “Thank you, FRIDAY. Keep this information on Tony’s personal secure server. Don’t share it with anyone but Tony or me, for now.” 

  


“Yes, Ms. Potts.” 

  


Tony finally emerged from his stupor, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I have a daughter, Pep.” 

  


Pepper nodded. “Yes, you do, Tony.” 

  


“But she’s all grown up. She doesn’t need a dad, especially a screwed up one like me.” 

  


“Maybe, maybe not. I’ve always thought you’d be a better father than you give yourself credit for. Still, I’d bet she can use a friend. After all, who can’t?” 

  


Tony nodded absently, almost sleepwalking to the elevator to his lab. 

  


Pepper let him go, knowing that working with his hands would give his brain the time and space to process the evening’s revelations. 

  


Darcy noticed a change in Tony’s behavior almost at once, but, ignorant of her parentage, attributed it to Pepper’s benevolent influence. So, she ate lunch with him when she didn’t have other plans, because he asked her to. She found herself subject to engineering lessons - both practical and theoretical. She found she enjoyed these quite a bit. She had been good at science in high school, but the labs had always been her favorite part. Engineering, she quickly discovered, was like one big lab. She also found herself absorbing the history of SI and the Stark family. If she had had any intimation of her relationship to Tony, she might have realized that she was being groomed to take a place on the SI board, and someday, to sit at the head of that table. 

  


Still, aside from the changed tenor of her interactions with Tony, her life continued as usual. She worked with Jane and Bruce. She cooked ‘family’ dinners for the Avengers. She juggled and publicized the Avengers’ charitable activities (the latter after the fact). She dated Steve, spending evenings at the movies or shows, days at Coney Island or the Bronx Zoo, enjoying stolen kisses and a few heavy make out sessions. The last were generally followed by Steve feeling guilty for his ‘ungentlemanly’ conduct. She was profoundly frustrated, but he was so damned sweet that she couldn’t be mad at him. Plus, she knew he was suffering just as much as she was. Sometimes Bucky, Sam, or both joined them on their outings. They were good company, and she loved watching the sarcasm fly around her. 

  


On one such excursion to MOMA, her life went splody. Everything was going great. Steve propounded on the art; Bucky and Sam mocked him; she took in both the art and the show. And then the show ended. Abruptly. The three men circled around her like a wagon train facing an Apache attack. (She chided herself a bit for the less-than-sensitive analogy, but forgave herself as the quiet museum filled with screams and gunshots and death.) 

  


The next thing she knew, she was waking up in a suite on the medical floor of Avengers Towers. Tony leaned over her, not letting her sit up. “Wha? Tony? Where’s Steve? Bucky? Sam? What happened?” she managed to get out. She dropped back into deep sleep before he could answer. 

  


Tony kissed her forehead, and collapsed into the chair next to her bed, grateful she hadn’t noticed his pallor. The super-soldiers and the birdman had done a good job of keeping her safe from the flying bullets. Nevertheless, a ricochet had clipped her, nicking a ‘minor’ artery. By then, the rest of the Avengers had been on scene, and Tony had evacuated her himself. Dr. Cho hadn’t batted an eyelash when he insisted she use his stored blood to transfuse her, along with two fresh pints besides, as she shared his very rare AB negative blood type. 

  


As far as Tony knew, the rest of the team was still mopping up and dealing with the local authorities. He knew none of them were hurt - it had turned out to be a botched run-of-the-mill robbery attempt. He assumed that was what Darcy had really wanted to know. However, since she slept again, he let the stress and blood loss catch up to him, and he dropped off himself. 

  


Darcy woke again, more fully, some hours later. Feeling around, she found her glasses on the bedside table, which allowed her to read the note from Steve beneath them. Apparently, he would be tied up with the NYPD for some time yet, as would Bucky and Sam. She heard a noise to her right, and turned to see Tony snuffling into the chair near her bed. Darcy frowned a little. She knew he had taken a somewhat proprietary interest in her of late - his current project was encouraging her to pursue a master’s degree in engineering, at MIT, but this was weird, and way beyond his usual noblesse oblige attitude toward those he considered ‘his’ people. 

  


“Tony!” she shouted, well, whispered loudly. She didn’t seem to have the strength to shout. Still, it was enough. 

  


“Huh? Wha?” Tony startled awake. “Oh, Darcy. How are you feeling?” He stood and shuffled the chair a little closer to her bed before slumping into it again. 

  


“Fine. Not to be rude or anything, but what are you doing here?” 

  


Tony pondered his answer to her question. Of course he would tell her the truth; that was never in doubt. The issue was how much of the truth to tell. Given how close (not actually close at all, despite the blood loss) he’d come to losing her, he decided he was all in. “Where else would your father be at a time like this?” To lower the maudlin factor, he added, “And why are you dating a man who hung out with your grandfather?” 

  


Darcy sighed. “Tony, what are you talking about? My dad died of a heart attack five years ago. I mean, I realize that you’ve been treating me like a daughter, and I won’t deny that I’ve enjoyed it, but this isn’t some manga where you can just appoint yourself my dad.” 

  


Tony’s features drew into an unaccustomed sincerity. “I’m not. That day you brought me the pasta with the Tuscan vegetables? I finally looked at you, really looked at you. You have your grandfather’s eyes and your grandmother’s smile. I had FRIDAY run the test. I don’t know who your birth mother was - she didn’t have any ID on her when the drunk driver hit her car, and I don’t remember even meeting her, much less sleeping with her. And I would - I wasn’t partying hard enough to black out and forget stuff yet back then. And she never tried to get in contact with me to tell me she was pregnant.” He frowned. That still bothered him; he should remember her and she should have told him she was pregnant. 

  


“But, yeah, you’re my daughter, Darcy, and as sorry as I am that I didn’t get to be your dad, I’m really glad you were adopted by the Lewises, because I don’t think I could have picked better parents for you if I had been given the chance.” He rushed on, anxious to have it all out now. “I know you don’t need a dad, and I would never want to replace William Lewis, but maybe you could find some room in your heart for me?” 

  


Darcy’s eyes narrowed. “You seem to have known about this for a while.” 

  


Tony had the grace to look sheepish. “I have, but I couldn’t figure out how, or even if, I should tell you. But today, well, I knew I had to.” 

  


Darcy nodded contemplatively. “Okay.” 

  


“Okay?” 

  


“I’m gonna need some time to process this, but okay. Just,” Darcy paused, “don’t try and give Steve a shovel talk or I’ll never get laid. Got it?” 

  


Tony sighed; he had been looking forward to that. “If you insist. Wait. You haven’t done the deed with Spangles?” He brightened considerably. 

  


“No, Tony. And no gloating either.” 

  


“If you insist.” 

  


“I do. Now go away, so I can start processing.” 

  


He nodded, and then headed for the door. Over his shoulder as he left, he tossed out, “Don’t forget to finish your MIT application! Family tradition and all that!”

**Author's Note:**

> I head canon that Obie procured a sample of Tony's DNA (c'mon, teenage boy with more money than sense, there had to be a used condom around somewhere), hired a poor but smart college student as a 'surrogate' for him and his wife (not telling his wife, if he even had one), planning to control the child's upbringing himself (either as its adoptive father or at more of a distance), grooming the child to supplant Tony when the time came. But he didn't know about the accident either, so Darcy was raised by a well-off couple who had married later in life and decided to adopt.


End file.
